After Winter Soldier
by Vahlance
Summary: What happened after The Winter Soldier? Serious fic, unfinished, lots of emotion.


The soldier sat on the cold cement floor, propping himself against the stairwell. Dripping wet and holding a knife in his right hand, the non-metallic one, he winced in pain. The fight with Steve, his supposed friend from another life, had been brutal and he could feel the bruises forming from the strangle hold that nearly knocked him unconscious. Yet he saved that man, the man Hydra had repeatedly told him was his enemy, one who was disrupting the progress of the world and the human race. Just one word, a name, unraveled everything the soldier thought he knew.

"Bucky?"

The soldier could see the face of Captain America as he referred directly to him. At that second everything had become a question.

'Who the hell is Bucky? Why does my chest tighten at the name, and my throat want to say "I'm right here buddy" without even a thought? What is going on!?" The soldier was deep in thought. He couldn't understand. That man, Captain America. No it was Steve. The name Steve Rogers, when first given to him as his next target by Hydra he remembers his heart skipping a beat. The name seemed to surface from the back of his mind but he could never figure out why. Now he knew.

"Bucky it's me!" The soldier heard the voice of Steve in his head again, he knew this man. He wasn't just a target, he could not kill him. Something in his mind, a person from long ago, this "Bucky" Steve called out for. He ripped through the soldiers own mind and memories, prevented the soldier from killing Steve. This ghost of Bucky made him save the captain from the wreckage of the carriers and drag him from the depths of the bay.

He shivered, bleeding and cold, he hadn't gotten far from the crash site before coming to an abandoned factory where the soldier now took refuge. Hydra would be looking for him, he knew it. Yes, SHIELD had managed to destroy a large portion of the group along with its plans to use the heli-carriers to kill any and all threats to Hydra, but the radical group was hardly gone. Hydra would just simply go underground once again and build up its strength for another attack. In the meantime the winter soldier was a liability to them, and he knew it. They may suspect he had died trying to fulfill his mission for now, but Hydra wasn't that sloppy and they'd be watching.

The soldier was so deep in thought he had hardly taken in his surroundings properly, a mistake he never would have made a few days ago before Steve had said his old name. The old factory, or at least that's what the soldier assumed it was, looked as though it would topple over at any second. The walls were riddled with cracks and chips. Large pieces of the ceiling were now sitting on the floor with ivy growing in their place above his head. Almost all of the windows were broken while the remaining ones were covered in years of dirt turning the clear glass to a muddied yellow sheet. The stairwell he had propped up against surprisingly seemed to be the sturdiest looking piece of architecture in the entire building and helped to make the soldier feel slightly less helpless as it covered his back. His surroundings now properly assessed, the soldier moved his attention now to his flesh arm bleeding badly on the already dirty cement floor. The gouges in his skin from shrapnel ran deep across his shoulder and above the elbow, blood was streaming down his forearm onto his hand still clutching his favorite knife. There had to be a first aid kit or at least some fabric laying around _somewhere_ he could use to slow his blood loss.

Suddenly his mind took a U-turn. That was a funny thought, his 'favorite' knife. It had taken this long for him to realize his affinity for the Gerber MkII that had accompanied him during most, if not all, of his missions. He had never paid much attention until now to what it was he liked or disliked, he was always too busy with the missions themselves, following orders and being sure of his success. Things had changed, Hydra's plan was thwarted by Steve and his companions. Now he had saved Steve. All leading to the realization that the soldier had a favorite knife. But his arm was still bleeding and those thoughts were frivolous when his attention returned to the streams of red that were still flowing.

The soldier further assessed his injuries. A sprained ankle, a couple of broken ribs, and enough bruises to turn a majority of his body purple for the next week among many cuts. He had had worse. Forcing himself up off of the floor using mostly the inhuman strength in his bionic arm bracing against the stairwell, he got to his feet. His head throbbed and his eyes blurred as he walked slowly through the old factory in search of a first aid kit of some kind. In one of the first floor rooms, in what looked like the main assembly area he found an old dirt covered kit, thankfully unopened, unused and fairly well equipped.


End file.
